Fatal Flaws: How a Misfolded Protein Baffled Scientists and Changed the Way We Look at the Brain
By Jay Ingram
Web edition: May 16, 2013
Print edition: June 1, 2013; Vol.183 #11 (p. 30)
Learn how scientists discovered misshapen proteins called prions and found that these agents cause mad cow and other neurological diseases.
Yale Univ., 2013, 282 p., $30
water for elephants old school nick swisher jaco san jose sharks humber perfect game ufc 145 fight card
Internet marketing is a great way to get more profit for a low cost. There are many advantages to using Internet marketing, because the entire world could be potential customers, not just a select few. However, you need to learn the most effective ways to market your business on the web. This article provides several ideas that you can use.
Try to make banner ads you design look unique and unlike normal banner ads. So try to liven up the way your banner ad looks and you will make people more willing to click on it.
Making your site stand out from the rest is a great marketing tip. Web surfers have so many choices these days when it comes to websites, so you really need to put legitimate energy into developing a site that is unique and engaging. A simple way to do this, is by highlighting a special service that you offer.
Make sure that you are constantly informed with all different aspects available to you via the Internet. Keeping yourself updated on new innovations and trendy sites on the Internet will give you marketing inspiration for getting the word out about your own product and services.
You can increase your success at Internet marketing by creating a viral video with tags and uploading it. Make sure to use back links to your site in the video descriptions. This will have a big impact on the amount of people who visit your website.
Create emails that specify a distinct action that you want your readers to take. These actions could be anything from visiting your website to purchasing a product from you. This has an added benefit for you. You can judge how effective your pitch is because you can track their actions.
A good way in which to get the humanitarians on your side in an online business is to make sure that you're donating a portion of your proceeds to some type of charity. Now, of course, you don't want to wear this like a badge of honor. You shouldn't gloat about it, but you also want people to see it advertised on your site. The percentage of your profits doesn't need to be huge to help your marketing.
Putting out a press release is a great way to increase traffic for internet marketing. Writing interesting and concise press releases and announcements can often be placed on free online publications and other industry news sites. This can elevate the quality of your product and increase your visibility.
Try to start small and begin growing your company organically. Bulking up the number of pages on your website does not increase search engine visits. In fact, search engines are more likely to avoid the larger site.
Most people will respect someone with an important title. If you are the boss of your company, let people know! A title such as "President" or "CEO" holds weight within the business world.
When using images and pictures on your site, make sure to include captions. This provides keywords the search engines can index in order to determine how relevant each image is. With solid captions for most images on your site, you will see your rank rise on search results pages.
Use social networking sites, like Facebook or MySpace, to target a specific market. Try and avoid spamming people through MySpace because they have started an anti-spamming campaign that could lead to you being taken to court.
Your customers can be offered a subscription of things they purchase. An example for this would be offering customers who buy bulk computer paper the option of getting it shipped monthly at a large discount.
Get your name noticed by advertising on websites that receive heavy traffic. This practice could lead to major exposure of your site. If your page has traffic all day, the presence of your ad will be implanted in a customer's mind.
The most powerful method of increasing the success of your Internet marketing is to provide valuable content. Give your customers something that they want and update your content on a regular basis. It is a smart idea to have a second person preview your content. Fresh perspective can really help! Give your content a final review by using a good grammar and spell check program to insure that it is error-free.
The variety of Internet marketing tactics can make it daunting to begin an endeavor of your own. Although there is a lot to choose from, it can be complicated to decide what marketing strategies work best. But, the advice you just read should make choosing easier.
Businesses go to so much trouble when there is one sure-fire, simple, very inexpensive way to attract new clients to a business: Teach a free class. That is what article marketing is like. Your articles are just like free classes. You teach your target readers something helpful in your article. Your resource box then says, "If you enjoyed this article you can visit my website and apply what you have learned."
Being an entrepreneur and earning multiple streams of income is a dream that many have, but in reality it does take some initial hard work to achieve this. Earning multiple streams of income is the wave of the future, and here are some tips and advice for you when you are looking for ways in which to do this for yourself.
Starting a home based business to earn income online takes a significant amount of time and energy upfront to get things going. Not seeing results immediately can be discouraging and cause people to give up too early. In this article, we look at the process of starting a home based business and working through the frustrations to be there when the sales come flowing in.
Cyber marketing has now become an indispensable segment of e-commerce as well as the internet and World Wide Web related topics. Cyber marketing simply refers to a technique of attracting potential customers by advertising your products or services through such means as websites, emails, and banners.
If you want your SEO to work you now need to concentrate on appeasing Google Panda, and to do this you need to know what Google Panda's spiders/bots will be looking for. Find out here how to search engine optimise your website for the latest Google Panda algorithm, and achieve the success you deserve.
aspirin 21 jump street illinois primary results acapulco mexico hines ward robert deniro mexico news
In this image reviewed by the U.S. Military, Navy Capt. Robert Durand stands next to some of the makeshift weapons, including broomsticks and batons made of plastic and steel, that were confiscated from prisoners at the Guantanamo Bay prison following a Saturday clash between prisoners and guards, on display for the press at the U.S. Naval Base Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, Tuesday, April 16, 2013. Soldiers with riot helmets and shields swept into recreation yards and met with resistance from several dozen prisoners, the leadership of the detention center said. The guard force raided Camp 6 because the prisoners had for several weeks covered up 147 of the 160 security cameras, making it impossible to monitor them amid a weeks long hunger strike. The hunger strike goes on, with 45 prisoners refusing meals and 13 being force fed, officials said. (AP Photo/Ben Fox)
In this image reviewed by the U.S. Military, Navy Capt. Robert Durand stands next to some of the makeshift weapons, including broomsticks and batons made of plastic and steel, that were confiscated from prisoners at the Guantanamo Bay prison following a Saturday clash between prisoners and guards, on display for the press at the U.S. Naval Base Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, Tuesday, April 16, 2013. Soldiers with riot helmets and shields swept into recreation yards and met with resistance from several dozen prisoners, the leadership of the detention center said. The guard force raided Camp 6 because the prisoners had for several weeks covered up 147 of the 160 security cameras, making it impossible to monitor them amid a weeks long hunger strike. The hunger strike goes on, with 45 prisoners refusing meals and 13 being force fed, officials said. (AP Photo/Ben Fox)
FILE - In this Oct. 9, 2007 file photo, Guantanamo guards keep watch over a cell block with detainees in Camp 6 maximum-security facility, at Guantanamo Bay U.S. Naval Base, Cuba. Guards clashed Saturday, April 13, 2013 with prisoners at the Guantanamo Bay prison as the military sought to move hunger strikers out of a communal section of the detention center, officials said. The confrontation occurred after the commander decided to move prisoners into single, solid-walled cells so that prison authorities could monitor them more closely during the hunger strike, the military said.. (AP Photo/Brennan Linsley, File)
GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba (AP) ? The morning routine started before dawn with a prisoner chanting the Muslim call to prayer through a small opening in the heavy steel door of his cell as soldiers with face shields quietly paced in the dimly lit corridor. The calm did not last long.
Within minutes, troops began rushing about, the words "code yellow" echoing through their handheld radios. The emergency was a prisoner in another cellblock who did not appear to be moving, prompting the urgent call to the medics to come check him, something they have been called upon to do many times in recent weeks, said the Army captain in charge of the maximum-security section of the Guantanamo Bay prison known as Camp 5.
"Recently, it's been happening very frequently," said the captain, whose name the military would not allow to be released for security reasons.
Officials later said the man who sparked the alarm Thursday was OK, merely faint and dizzy, and he did not have to be hospitalized as others have had amid a weeks-old hunger strike at the prison. Still, it was an illustration of just how tense Guantanamo has become of late, with more than a third of prisoners refusing to eat and nearly everyone locked down for most of the day since a violent clash with guards on- April 13. At least two detainees have tried to kill themselves since that confrontation between guards in riot gear and prisoners with broomsticks and metal bars.
Prison officials opened the prison to journalists from The Associated Press and three other news organizations this week, portraying the atmosphere as tense but under control at this detention center that has been open for 11 years and now holds 166 men, most without charge.
The visit came with certain restrictions. Among them was a prohibition on identifying by name certain officials, such as the Muslim cultural affairs adviser who blamed the recent troubles, including the hunger strike, on a small group of jihadist "troublemakers" who he says are trying to make sure at least one fellow prisoner commits suicide.
"Are they done? No, they are not done yet. And there will be more than one death," said the Arab-American adviser, who goes by the name "Zak" and has worked at the prison since September 2005.
Seven prisoners have killed themselves over the years at Guantanamo. The most recent, last September, was Adnan Latif, who took an overdose of prescription psychiatric medicine. Though the government had accused him of training with the Taliban in Afghanistan, he was not being prosecuted nor could he be sent back to his native Yemen, which is considered too unstable to control former Guantanamo prisoners.
It is the uncertainty over when, if ever, the men held at Guantanamo will be released that has caused widespread despair and frustration among prisoners, lawyers for the men say. President Barack Obama ordered the detention center closed upon taking office, but Congress thwarted him and made it harder to move prisoners elsewhere. Releases and transfers have since become rare.
"Until such time as our government starts to do the right thing in connection with Guantanamo Bay, the frustration is only going to continue to build, and I can't imagine what the outcome will be," said Navy Lt. Cmdr. Kevin Bogucki, a military lawyer visiting clients at the base this week.
Journalists are not permitted to interview prisoners and can see them only from afar, passing time in cramped recreation pens under a glaring Caribbean sun or, watched on a security monitor via a camera in each cell, pacing back and forth in beige-walled cells.
Prisoners to Guantanamo were first held in open cages, but conditions improved under President George W. Bush and Obama.
In March 2012, officials were proudly saying that 80 percent of the men were living in a communal setting at the prison's Camp 6, free to spend 22 hours a day roaming about their pods and recreation yards with fellow prisoners, watching more than two dozen satellite television channels and taking language lessons and other classes. The military had begun allowing some to make Skype calls to their families and was about to provide a DVD player to every detainee so they wouldn't have to fight over what to watch.
Things went bad on Feb. 6. That's when troops went into Camp 6 and began a shakedown for contraband and seized a number of personal items. Prisoners soon began complaining that their Qurans had been mishandled and their treatment had suddenly worsened. Then they launched what has become the most sustained hunger strike in years at the prison.
"Zak," the Muslim cultural adviser, said troublemakers convinced other prisoners that they needed to shake things up, to flout the rules, if they wanted to get out. "They said, 'What you are doing right now is not going to teach the world about Guantanamo.' They got up and preached, and preached, and preached," he said.
The men have charged through their lawyers that guards have kept them from praying and sleeping by being noisy, denied them water, painfully strapped them down to be force-fed. The military denies those allegations specifically and any mistreatment in general.
Army Col. John Bogdan, who is in charge of the guard force, met with detainees and said he couldn't address their main complaint. "They were asking to be released from Gitmo," he said. "I can't do that."
Officials at the base this week did paint a picture of a Camp 6 that had, in the eyes of some members of the military, grown too lax: Prisoners had hoarded hundreds of bottles of water and food, made weapons out of pieces of exercise equipment and whatever else was at hand. Some threw urine or feces at guards or poked at them with broomsticks through the fence. One managed to secure a contraband iPod, which officials said could have come via a corrupt guard.
The biggest concern was that dozens of men had covered the security cameras in their cells with plastic cereal bowls, making it impossible for guards to monitor them and make sure they weren't attempting suicide, officials said.
The troops, meanwhile, did not risk entering and perhaps setting off a melee with prisoners ? at least not until April 13, when commanders decided to move nearly every prisoner back to individual cells.
"We were trying to be patient and work with them and give them an opportunity to comply," Bogdan said. "We hit the point where we were accepting too much risk and it was time to take action."
The raid touched off a clash between guards and several dozen prisoners, but authorities say it lasted only a few minutes, with two guards and five prisoners suffering minor injuries.
All but a handful of the prison's 166 prisoners are now in individual cells, allowed out for only about two hours a day, returning to conditions that human rights groups previously called inhumane, especially for men who have not been convicted of a crime.
Bogdan and other officials said they will gradually allow some detainees ? even those participating in the hunger strike ? to return to communal living if they follow prison rules.
As of Thursday, the military counted 59 prisoners on hunger strike, including four in the detainee hospital for observation.
Associated Pressthe new ipad apple announcement indianapolis colts joseph kony joseph kony ipad 3 release date apple store down
By Sui-Lee Wee
BEIJING (Reuters) - China is investigating the possibility of human-to-human transmission of a new strain of bird flu that has killed 17 people and is examining "family clusters" of people infected with the virus, a top health official was quoted as saying.
Authorities have slaughtered thousands of birds and closed some live poultry markets to slow the rate of human infection. But many aspects of this new variety of bird flu remain a mystery, particularly whether the H7N9 strain is being transmitted between people.
China has warned that the number of infections, 82 so far, could rise. Most of the cases and 11 of the deaths have been in the commercial capital Shanghai.
Feng Zijian, the director of the health emergency center at the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, told reporters on Wednesday that "we are paying close attention to these cases of family clusters.
"(We) are still analyzing in-depth to see which has the greatest possibility -- did it occur first from avian-to-human transmission, and then a human-to-human infection, whether they had a common history of exposure, were exposed to infected objects or whether it was caused by the environment," Feng said.
His comments were reported in a statement posted on the website of the National Health and Family Planning Commission.
One of the families that China is studying is made up of two brothers and their father who died of the virus, Feng said.
"This family cluster case still doesn't change our understanding of the characteristics of the disease in general -- that it is transmitted from birds to people and there's no evidence of human-to-human transmission," Feng said.
CONTACT WITH POULTRY
Efforts to determine the nature of the H7N9 virus are also hampered by a lack of accurate information from the victims on whether they have had contact with poultry, Feng said.
The World Health Organization said on Wednesday that a number of people who have tested positive for the new strain appear to have had no contact with poultry.
The WHO had previously reported two suspected "family clusters", but the first turned out to be a false alarm and the second was inconclusive.
Zeng Guang, chief scientist in charge of epidemiology at the China Disease Prevention and Control Centre (CDPCC), said about 40 percent of human victims had no clear history of poultry exposure, the Beijing News reported.
Feng said that not all patients "can recall the history of exposure. Just like with the H5N1 avian influenza, 50 percent of the patients knew exactly their history of exposure, the other 50 percent can't recall it at all."
He was referring to a an especially virulent strain of bird flu that had raised the threat of a global pandemic in 2003.
Feng said that as most patients were in critical condition, the government was encountering delays in obtaining information about their exposure to poultry.
The WHO said a team of experts going to China soon would examine whether the virus can be spread between people, although there was "no evidence of sustained human-to-human transmission".
The state-run China Daily newspaper, citing an unnamed source, said the team's talks with Chinese representatives would be held on Thursday. The experts would then visit affected areas.
(Editing by Ron Popeski)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/china-says-investigating-human-human-spread-bird-flu-044438853.html
Google Nose success Cookies april fools day april fools day April Fools Jokes Julie Roberts
Surfing attorney Donald Darst, 62, was ordered to court May 1 to face a preliminary hearing on felony charges that he vandalized a car belonging to Santa Cruz Assistant District Attorney Steve Drottar at Pleasure Point in March.
Darst and his lawyer Brian Worthington appeared before Judge Timothy Volkmann Tuesday to set a hearing date on the charge that he did more than $3,000 damage to Drottar's car, which was caught by a hidden camera.
Drottar, a stand-up paddler and a surfer, said his car had been vandalized several times, prompting him to install the camera. Images there led sheriff's deputies to Darst, who pleaded innocent to the charge.
The prosecution was handled by George Chadwick, of Santa Clara County, who was brought in to avoid appearance of conflict of interest in the case.
Defense attorney Worthington asked for a private meeting with the judge April 30, at which he said the lawyers may reach a resolution to the case.?
Out of the courtroom Worthington said Darst is well-liked in the surfing and legal communities.
Here's a video of him talking about Jay Moriarity from 2011.
?
?
Ronda Rousey PS4 Google Glass Cecil Hotel Cressida Bonas Kenny Clutch Edward Gorey
You're not imagining it: March 2013 was chilly ? the second-coldest March since 2000. The culprit is a stubborn mass of warm air over Greenland that blocked the jet stream.
This NOAA satellite image taken March 28 shows the stationary air mass over Greenland and the North Atlantic that kept March so chilly for most of the continental US.
Weather Underground / AP
EnlargeAlthough spring has arrived, it may not feel that way for many in the United States and Canada who have had to put up with unusually cold temperatures.
Skip to next paragraph' +
google_ads[0].line2 + '
' +
google_ads[0].line3 + '
Subscribe Today to the Monitor
Last month was a chilly one, ranking as the second-coldest March in the continental United States since 2000, according to the National Weather Service (NWS). The average temperature across the United States this March was also 13 degrees Fahrenheit (7.2 degrees Celsius) lower than in March 2012, and a late-winter blizzard broke snowfall records in many areas.
So, why has it been so cold?
The culprit is a stubborn, stationary mass of warm air over Greenland and the North Atlantic that has blocked the normal flow of air from west to east and south to north, said Greg Carbin, a meteorologist with the NWS' Storm Prediction Center. This flow of air, known as the jet stream, usually brings more warm air from the South as the Northern Hemisphere begins to heat up in the spring.
This March, however, the mass of warm air ? a high-pressure system that repels incoming weather systems ? has redirected air currents and created a pattern of winds coming from the Northwest, blasting the eastern two-thirds of the United States with Arctic air, Carbin said.
"This obstinate mass of warm air over Greenland has redirected air currents like a rock in a stream," Carbin said.
However, the spring season hasn't been cold everywhere. In fact, the southwestern United States has been warmer than average, as the region has been unaffected by the blocking system in the North Atlantic, said Bob Henson, a meteorologist and science writer with the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo.
Due, in part, to the cold, there have been fewer than 20 tornadoes in the United States this March, Carbin said. On average, March will see 76 twisters across the United States. Tornadoes depend on warm, moist air, which was scarce this past March, Carbin added.?
Some research has suggested a link between a retreat of Arctic sea ice in a warming world and these high-pressure blocking systems, Carbin said.
Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/science/~3/HgNeTN30RiQ/Why-was-March-so-cold-Blame-Greenland
Valerie Harper White Smoke Barcelona Kwame Kilpatrick New pope 2013 good morning america earthquake california
In this Monday, March 4, 2013 photo, Samuel Little, a suspected serial killer, appears at Los Angeles Superior Court in Los Angeles. Little, 72, was arrested in Louisville, Ky., in September by U.S. Marshals on an unrelated narcotics warrant while investigators built their case. He later waived extradition and was brought to Los Angeles, where he was charged with three murder counts and the special circumstance allegation of multiple murders. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)
In this Monday, March 4, 2013 photo, Samuel Little, a suspected serial killer, appears at Los Angeles Superior Court in Los Angeles. Little, 72, was arrested in Louisville, Ky., in September by U.S. Marshals on an unrelated narcotics warrant while investigators built their case. He later waived extradition and was brought to Los Angeles, where he was charged with three murder counts and the special circumstance allegation of multiple murders. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)
In this Monday, March 4, 2013 photo, Samuel Little, a suspected serial killer, appears at Los Angeles Superior Court in Los Angeles. Little, 72, was arrested in Louisville, Ky., in September by U.S. Marshals on an unrelated narcotics warrant while investigators built their case. He later waived extradition and was brought to Los Angeles, where he was charged with three murder counts and the special circumstance allegation of multiple murders. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)
In this Monday, March 4, 2013 photo, Samuel Little, a suspected serial killer, appears at Los Angeles Superior Court in Los Angeles. Little, 72, was arrested in Louisville, Ky., in September by U.S. Marshals on an unrelated narcotics warrant while investigators built their case. He later waived extradition and was brought to Los Angeles, where he was charged with three murder counts and the special circumstance allegation of multiple murders. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)
In this Monday, March 4, 2013 photo, Samuel Little, a suspected serial killer, appears at Los Angeles Superior Court in Los Angeles. Little, 72, was arrested in Louisville, Ky., in September by U.S. Marshals on an unrelated narcotics warrant while investigators built their case. He later waived extradition and was brought to Los Angeles, where he was charged with three murder counts and the special circumstance allegation of multiple murders. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)
Timeline follows the life of Samuel Little
LOS ANGELES (AP) ? When Los Angeles cold case detectives caught up with Samuel Little this past fall, he was living in a Christian shelter in Kentucky, his latest arrest a few months earlier for alleged possession of a crack pipe. But the LA investigators wanted him on far more serious charges: The slayings of two women in 1989, both found strangled and nude below the waist ? victims of what police concluded had been sexually motivated strangulations.
Little's name came up, police said, after DNA evidence collected at old crime scenes matched samples of his stored in a criminal database. After detectives say they found yet another match, a third murder charge was soon added against Little.
Now, as the 72-year-old former boxer and transient awaits trial in Los Angeles, authorities in numerous jurisdictions in California, Florida, Kentucky, Missouri, Louisiana, Texas, Georgia, Mississippi and Ohio are scouring their own cold case files for possible ties to Little. One old murder case, in Pascagoula, Miss., already has been reopened. DNA results are pending in some others.
Little's more than 100-page rap sheet details crimes in 24 states spread over 56 years ? mostly assault, burglary, armed robbery, shoplifting and drug violations. In that time, authorities say incredulously, he served less than 10 years in prison.
But Los Angeles detectives allege he was also a serial killer, who traveled the country preying on prostitutes, drug addicts and troubled women.
They assert Little often delivered a knockout punch to women and then proceeded to strangle them while masturbating, dumping the bodies and soon after leaving town. Their investigation has turned up a number of cases in which he was a suspect or convicted.
Police are using those old cases ? and tracking down surviving victims ? to help build their own against Little.
"We see a pattern, and the pattern matches what he's got away with in the past," said LAPD Detective Mitzi Roberts.
Little has pleaded not guilty in the three LA slayings, and in interviews with detectives after his September arrest he described his police record as "dismissed, not guilty, dismissed."
"I just be in the wrong place at the wrong time with people," he said, according to an interview transcript reviewed by The Associated Press.
Still, as more details emerge, so do more questions. Among them: How did someone with so many encounters with the law, suspected by prosecutors and police officers of killing for decades, manage to escape serious jail time?
"It's the craziest rap sheet I've ever seen," said Los Angeles Deputy District Attorney Beth Silverman, who has worked many serial killer cold cases. "The fact that he hasn't spent a more significant period of his life (in custody) is a shocking thing. He's gotten break after break after break."
Deputy Public Defender Michael Pentz, who represents Little, declined to comment.
Authorities have pieced together a 24-page timeline tracking Little's activity across the country since his birth. His rap sheet has helped them pinpoint his location sometimes on a monthly basis. Law enforcement agencies are now cross-referencing that timeline with cold case slayings in their states.
The Florida Department of Law Enforcement is leading a review of that state's unsolved murders and helping coordinate the effort among 12 jurisdictions. The department published an intelligence bulletin alerting authorities in Florida, Alabama and Georgia about Little's case, noting he lived in the area on and off in the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s.
"We strongly encouraged them to look at any unresolved homicides that they had during those time frames and then consider him as a potential suspect," said Jeff Fortier, a special agent supervisor at the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. The department is re-examining DNA evidence in about 15 cases that was collected before advances in forensic science allowed for thorough analysis, Fortier said.
"We are in the infancy stages of what we expect will be a protracted investigation," he said.
In Mississippi, Pascagoula cold case Detective Darren Versiga is re-investigating the killing of Melinda LaPree, a 22-year-old prostitute found strangled in 1982. Little had been arrested in that crime but never indicted, Versiga said. The detective has tracked down old witnesses and is working to reconstruct the case file because much of it was washed away during Hurricane Katrina.
Little, who often went by the name Samuel McDowell, grew up with his grandmother in Lorain, Ohio. His rap sheet shows his first arrest at age 16 on burglary charges. After serving time in a youth authority he was released and, months later, arrested again for breaking and entering.
In an hour- and 15-minute interview with Los Angeles detectives, Little spoke openly about his past and his time in the penitentiary, where he started boxing as a middleweight against the other inmates. "I used to be a prizefighter," he said.
In his late 20s, Little went to live with his mother in Florida and worked at the Dade County Department of Sanitation and, later, at a cemetery. Soon, he began traveling more widely and had more run-ins with the law; between 1971 and 1974 Little was arrested in eight states for crimes that included armed robbery, rape, theft, solicitation of a prostitute, shoplifting, DUI, aggravated assault on a police officer and fraud.
"I've been in and out of the penitentiary," he told the California officers.
"Well, for what?" a detective asked, to which Little responded: "Shoplifting and, uh, petty thefts and stuff."
Then came the 911 call of Sept. 11, 1976, in Sunset Hills, Mo.
Pamela Kay Smith was banging on the back door of a home, crying for help, naked below the waist with her hands bound behind her back with electrical cord and cloth. Smith, who was a drug addict, told officers that she was picked up by Little in St. Louis. She said he choked her from behind with electrical cord, forced her into his car, beat her unconscious, then drove to Sunset Hills and raped her.
Officers found Little, then 36, still seated in his car near the home where Smith sought refuge, with her jewelry and clothing inside. Little denied raping Smith, telling officers: "I only beat her." The case summary was recalled in court papers filed by prosecutors in Los Angeles.
Little was found guilty of assault with the intent to ravish-rape and was sentenced to three months in county jail. Pascagoula Detective Versiga, who reviewed the Smith case, believes Little may have pleaded to a lesser charge and received a shorter sentence because of the victim's lifestyle. The case file refers to Smith as a heroin addict who often failed to appear in court.
After that, the charges against Little grew more serious.
In Pascagoula, LaPree went missing in September 1982 after getting into a wood-paneled station wagon with a man witnesses later identified as Little. A month later her remains were found, and Little was arrested in her killing and the assault of two other prostitutes. Versiga believes grand jurors failed to indict in part because of the difficulty in determining a precise time of death but also because of credibility problems due to the victim and witnesses working as prostitutes.
Little, nevertheless, remained in custody and was extradited to Florida to be tried in the case of another slain woman.
Patricia Ann Mount, 26 and mentally disabled, was found dead in the fall of 1982 in rural Forest Grove, Fla., near Gainesville. Eyewitnesses described last seeing her leaving a beer tavern with a man identified as Little in a wood-paneled station wagon.
According to The Gainesville Sun's coverage of the trial, a fiber analyst testified that hairs found on Mount's clothes "had the same characteristics as head hairs taken from" Little. But when cross-examined the analyst said "it was also possible for hairs to be transferred if two people bumped together."
A jury acquitted Little in January 1984.
By October 1984, Little was back in custody ? this time in San Diego, accused in the attempted murder of two prostitutes who were kidnapped a month apart, driven to the same abandoned dirt lot, assaulted and choked. The first woman was left unconscious on a pile of trash but survived, according to court records. Patrol officers discovered Little in a car with the second woman and arrested him.
The two cases were tried jointly, but the jury failed to reach a verdict. Little later pleaded guilty to lesser charges of assault with great bodily injury and false imprisonment. He served about 2.5 years on a four-year sentence and, in February 1987, he was released on parole.
As he told the LA detectives in his interview, Little then moved to Los Angeles, where three more women were soon discovered dead: Carol Alford, 41, found on July 13, 1987; Audrey Nelson, 35, found on Aug. 14, 1989; and Guadalupe Apodaca, 46, found on Sept. 3, 1989. All were manually strangled.
It is for those slayings that Little now stands charged. No trial date has been set, though Little is due back in court this month for a procedural hearing. If convicted, Little would face a minimum of life in prison without parole, though prosecutors said they may seek the death penalty.
When the case landed on Detective Roberts' desk, she had no idea it would grow from two local cold case slayings to a cross-country probe into the past of a man with some 75 arrests. As she studied her suspect, Roberts also began calling agencies that had dealt with Little most recently.
He had been arrested on May 1, 2012, by sheriff's deputies in Lake Charles, La., for possession of a crack pipe and released with an upcoming court date. At Roberts' request, deputies tried finding him but came up empty. Then last September deputies called with a hit tracing an ATM purchase by Little to a Louisville, Ky., minimart. Within hours he was found at a nearby shelter.
In his interview with police, Little said he didn't recognize the slain LA women. Detectives said that DNA collected from semen on upper body clothing or from fingernail scrapings connect him to the crimes.
Roberts and others who've investigated Little through the years said some cases may not have gone forward because DNA testing wasn't available until the mid-1980s and, even when it was, wouldn't have been useful in these cases unless authorities tested clothing, fingernails or body swabs. Due to this perpetrator's particular modus operandi, DNA wouldn't necessarily be found through standard rape kit collection.
Even in those cases that did go to trial, they said, jurors may have found the victims less credible because of their backgrounds, and the witnesses ? often prostitutes ? in some cases disappeared. Because Little was also a transient, Roberts said: "I don't think he stuck in a lot of peoples' minds much."
"But what's different now, we're just not going to allow that to happen," she said. "I think we owe it to the victims. I think we owe it to the families."
Tony Zambrano was 17 when he learned his mother, Guadalupe Apodaca, was killed after going out for a drink one night.
"My brother told me she left, she went to go have a couple beers, and never came home," he recalls. Soon after he learned of her slaying.
For years Zambrano tried to find out what happened to his mother. When Roberts called him following Little's arrest, he was grateful. But he's also upset.
"My mom shouldn't really be dead now. For all those charges in San Diego, who gets four years?" Zambrano said. "This thing ain't over for a long shot."
___
Abdollah can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/latams
Associated Presscomedy central philadelphia eagles obamacare Todd Akin Register To Vote Fox News Live Obama 2016
